


Time.

by starsheartsandiron



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Light Angst, Minor Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Steve Rogers-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 06:00:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15745710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsheartsandiron/pseuds/starsheartsandiron
Summary: Steve was trapped, would always just be the man out of time. Losing a battle he could never hope to win as it slipped away, never to return.





	Time.

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of a ying/yang to my Drinks. fic

It wasn’t tangible. He couldn’t reach out and touch it, feel its heavy presence on his finger tips. He’s sure that if he could it would slip through the cracks, cascading to the ground and sink away into nothingness.

Hourglasses made more sense than clocks. The sand was an easier reminder of the passing seconds, minutes…funnelling down, down …and then one simple flip and it starts again like the days he was losing. But clocks. Clocks were, well, too intricate. There was _too much_ there. Steve used to love going into clock repair shops and watching the clockmaker tinker away with delicate hands and even more delicate pieces, the seconds ticking away around him a constant cacophony calling to him. Whispering hopes and dreams of the future.

And then there was the war to end all wars ( _what a hopefully generation they were_ Steve thought).

And now the clocks counted _too_ much. The ticking of the passing hands, the arbitrary numbers that read One to Twelve.

1 to 12

1 to 12

_1 to 12_

But he didn’t live by that anymore. There were 24 hours to his clock and every second _counted_.

One missed second and someone would get shot, one missed second and some would _die._

_And that was on him._

**_0600_ **

He opened his eyes.

0601    0602    0603    0604    0605

He closed his eyes again.

When he opened them again the red numbers yelled out 0610 at him.

10 minutes late he thought absentmindedly before rolling away.

There was no thunderous explosions or shivering bodies accompanied by clattering teeth. There was just _silence._

There was a plush bed with soft sheets. There was heating and the option to black out the sun and pretend it never came was ever present and always whispering sweetly at him. _Stay._

_Stay here._

_It’s kind and warm and nothing else matters._

_Close your eyes and slip a w a y…_

Steve rolled back.

0612

He cursed, time was _cruel._

He forced himself to swing his legs out of bed, wiping away sleep from his eyes before stretching and shuffling to the bathroom.

He scrubbed his face, harder than he should have, looking up at himself in the mirror his face wore an angry red that would disappear quickly enough. Eyes, blue and calm. No sign of fatigue. There was never sign of fatigue. There it was, sure enough the red seeped away and his fingers itched to scratch at the clean face once more. But he didn’t. He never did.

He finished the morning routine, cleaning away the last remnants of sleep from his body.

0650

_50 minutes late._

He stood in front of the mirror, exposed, damp skin shadowed in the dark room. Watched the way water fell from his hair and down his front before tangling into his pubic hair.

100 years old in this body.

Trapped.

Never to return to the scrawny boy who got into scraps in back alleys or the people he left behind. Faces that were obscured by time, drifting away only to return as bystanders in his dreams.

It taunted him, in every new face he met. Saw veterans with wrinkles and tired eyes, children with scrapped knees and budding teeth. The grey whips of hair the stretched out from Tony’s temples or the crow’s feet that sprang from his eyes. Time held to their skin in wonderful _beautiful_ ways.

And he was just the same.

0730

_Hour and a half late._

He packed himself into jeans and slipped a simple shirt over his head.

The kitchen clock, with its villainous hands counting away. Soft ‘tick tick tick’.

7:40

The toaster popped.

7:47

No other sound carried through the room but the threatening ‘ _tick tick tick’_

No one else was here.

_Time was cruel._


End file.
